Gadgets

7 Pieces of Connected Sports Gear to Give Your Game a Virtual Edge

Before technology, only hard work and harder coaching could help you tighten up your baseball swing or quicken your crossover. But now, sports equipment companies are giving athletes of all ages the tools to track and improve their performance in unprecedented ways.

There are a slew of sensors and connected equipment that will let you match your experience on the field with the metric and measurements you need to figure out what went right or wrong. When you can figure out why your free kicks are failing, or why your right hook isn't hitting hard enough, these tools will come in clutch.

Whether you're a budding NBA all-star or a devoted pick-up player, the 94Fifty Smart Sensor Basketball will help you break ankles and bury threes. The ball measures your shot speed, shot arc, dribble force, dribble speed and backspin. Then, it sends the information to your phone, where you can analyze what's working and what you need to improve.

The app also gives you drills to work on your problem areas, so you can one day make your hoop dreams come true — even if it's just to not get picked last.

Fine-tuning your swing is a never-ending process for a baseball player. But with this sensor from Zepp Labs, you can track several different speed and angular metrics to pinpoint what you need to fix before your next at-bat.

The app also lets you compare data with other users and friends, set goals, look over past performances, and find trends so you can get hot at the plate without burning yourself out.

Have a backhand or serve that needs a little work? The Play Pure racket measures your power, endurance, technique and impact on the court with a sensor built into the handle.

You can review all of that information on an app, which connects you to other users around the world. That way, you can bounce ideas off each other and figure out how you stack up against the competition.

As the saying goes, it's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game. While anyone who's actually competed for anything knows that its a crock of garbage, the X_Cell looks into how you played and gives you feedback through an app.

When you clip the X_Cell onto the waistband of your shorts, it'll measure how fast you moved, how hard you hustled and how high your vertical was. If you wear a special chest strap with it, it'll measure your heart rate, too.

The app also gives you different training regimens focused on improving target areas that'll help the way you play the game correspond with winning it.

Slide this sensor onto the end of your hockey stick, and you'll be able to measure speed, acceleration and angle of every shot you take. The sensor has enough battery life to record data for 1,000 shots, which it will send to an app for you to review.

The danger and long-lasting implications of concussions have plagued football at all levels, but the Shockbox helmet sensor is one of several similar products working to make sure the damage is mitigated as much as possible.

The sensor is placed inside of a helmet, and measures the impact of each hit the player takes to the hit. The coach has access to data from each hit, and is alerted if a player receives a blow strong enough to give him a concussion.

If ESPN broadcasts poker tournaments, then we can call Nerf basketball a sport. This hoop hooks up to your smart phone or tablet and allows you to play head-to-head games, dunk contests and a few other contests with friends. The hoop will even film you and save your best moves, because everyone is entitled to a highlight reel in 2014.

It might be hard for you to get your hands on this, but Gatorade developed an innovative way of tracking hydration on the soccer field for the Brazilian National Team for the recently finished World Cup.

Each player on the squad had a special hydration formula, and each of their Gatorade bottles came equipped with a special sensor to measure how much each player was drinking. The data was then sent to the coaches and trainers so they could make sure the players were staying hydrated.

The technology isn't on the market yet, but if it does get released, you'll be able to go with more than your gut to see when you need a little extra boost.

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